Chamber plans to bring carnival to Williamsburg

WILLIAMSBURG — The Williamsburg Chamber of Commerce plans to host a carnival on the grounds of the Recreation Center in June.

The Williamsburg City Council gave Chamber Director Erin Eichhorn permission last week to move forward with plans for the event.

Next Generation Shows is an Iowa-based company, said Eichhorn. According to its Facebook page, it’s a family-owned carnival company with 30 years of experience.

The company is based out of Lone Tree, said Eichhorn.

The Chamber plans to have the carnival at the Rec Center, at 939 S. Highland Street, June 5-8. Eichhorn told the City Council Jan. 13 that she ran the plan by Nichole Winegarden, the Rec Center’s director.

The carnival would set up Wednesday, June 4. Thursday, June 5, would be the only other day that might present a parking problem due to ball games at the Rec Center, Eichhorn said.

Next Generation will take care of everything — selling tickets, dumping trash setting up and taking care of rides, said Eichhorn. Campers for carnival employees would park on the east side of the Rec Center and would need a water line and an electrical drop box.

The water would be used for the campers and for concessions, said Eichhorn.

The city would need to provide a dumpster.

“It won’t be a big moneymaker,” said Eichhorn. The Carnival will take the first $12,000 in receipts and 90% of the earnings after that.

The Chamber wanted to provide something for people in the community to do, said Eichhorn. “It’ll bring a lot of people to town,” she said, and that will support local businesses.

The biggest challenge will be working around ball games.

Williamsburg Police Chief Justin Parsons asked Eichhorn how many people she expected.

It’s been a few years since Williamsburg has had a carnival, said Eichhorn, so she can’t guess how many people might attend. Advertising is always the key, she said, and the Chamber plans to advertise throughout the region.

Eichhorn said she didn’t want people parking on the road but wants them to park by the soccer fields.

Parsons also asked about traffic flow. Eichhorn said that’s something she hadn’t thought of, and it’s a discussion the Chamber needs to have with police.

That’s one of the reasons Eichhorn wanted to consult with the city council, she said. The council may know of issues that need to be addressed which the Chamber isn’t aware of.

Parsons, during his report to the City Council, asked the city to consider requiring a form for events so that police know beforehand what’s going on. Police have to take care of security, Parson said, and because the city doesn’t require event planners to inform police of details, officers have to make decisions after they show up for the event.

Officers could plan better if they had information beforehand, Parson said. Sometimes officers don’t even know who’s in charge or who they need to contact when situations arise.

“The last thing we want to do is cause people not to have events,” said Parsons. But he wants to make sure safety issues are taken care of so police can mitigate potential threats.

These are the types of things the city needs to address as the community continues to grow, said Parsons.

“I’d hate to see it become a paperwork burden,” said Councilman Tyler Marshall, but some kind of short form might be helpful.

“Once people know it has to be done, they’ll get used to it,” said Mayor Adam Grier.

The council agreed to consider some type of form to accompany event requests.